Corona-Like Illness: Did we get it before WHO Announcement of the Disease? A Cross-sectional Survey

Background: In Wuhan, cases with pneumonia of unknown etiology were reported in December 2019 and Coronavirus, called SARS-CoV-2 was detected in the lower respiratory tract samples of these patients. WHO has declared the infection a Pandemic on March 11, 2020. The most common symptoms of COVID-19 were fever, dry cough, fatigue, and dyspnea, myalgia. The aim of the study: To determine the frequency of people who assume they got, “Corona-like illness” before WHO announcement of the disease. Describe their demography and character of the disease. Material and Methods: This cross-sectional web- based anonymous survey study included participants who were fulfilling online designed questionnaire. Results: Most of the individuals that fill the questionnaire were in the age group (31-40 years old), most of them were from Egypt 91.5%, 10.7% were smokers, 6.7% of them with cardiac – hypertension and myocardial ischemia, 47.9% of them with allergic rhinitis and 23.4% with asthma. In total, 55.2% of those who fill the questionnaire have the experience of symptoms like coronavirus symptoms in October, November and early December. About 25.9% need to be admitted to ER. Conclusion: Many people may have experienced the disease before the announcement of WHO, especially that the new virus spreads as easily as “Flu”. This may explain the spread of the disease among the families as it is very difficult to stop influenza transmission. The antibodies testing would allow us to check blood samples for antibodies against coronavirus to tell whether remote immunity is found in the population or not.